From the PATRIOT-NEWS:

1. Mayor Linda Thompson, who has been in office since Jan. 4 and promised to “hit the ground running,” has yet to announce a plan.

2. The mayor and the majority of City Council members are barely on speaking terms. They can’t even agree on the hiring of a financial adviser or on three individuals to serve on the board of the Harrisburg Authority, which oversees the incinerator.

3. The city is in default. It missed another incinerator-related bond payment Sept. 1 and has given notice it will default on more than $3 million of general obligations bonds that are not related to the incinerator on Sept. 15.

4. Dauphin County, which regretfully co-signed as a guarantor on about half of the incinerator, is joining with other creditors to sue the city and force it to pay up…

Click here to read the full article.

From the VICTORIA TIMES COLONIST [Canada]:

Sharing of dirty needles by Victoria’s injection-drug users increased substantially after the city’s only fixed needle exchange closed in 2008, according to a study by the University of Victoria’s Centre for Addictions Research of [British Columbia.]

And rates of needle sharing – a practice that contributes to the spread hepatitis C and HIV – have remained significantly higher in Victoria than Vancouver over the past three years, researchers say…

Researchers say the needle sharing can be explained by the closing in May 2008 of Victoria’s only fixed needle exchange…

The report, called Drug Use Trends in Victoria and Vancouver, recommends reinstating at least one fixed-site needle exchange in Victoria along with mobile exchanges as part of a comprehensive range of services. It also calls for immediate abolishment of the current no-go zone for mobile distribution of needles in downtown Victoria so that they can be distributed where most needed…

From the “About Us” Section of NewsLanc.com’s web site: “NewsLanc.com is an e-zine focused on the important issues facing Lancaster city and county. Our mission is to provide an alternative source of coverage and comment from the monopoly Lancaster press. We will provide news without spin, editorials without vested interests and personal attacks, and solicit vigorous discussions from the public.”

Stated above: “WATCHDOG: Did the editorial writer fail to make it through grammar school math? If 100% pay their fair share, the 73% who now are paying the entire bill will pay less in the future! The above is just plain mean spirited, unless the writer is really that dumb.”

I’m trying to imagine how yellow your brand of journalism would be absent your noble mission of avoiding personal attacks.

By the way: Your mission statement should read, “…an alternative…TO the monopoly Lancaster press”, not “an alternative…FROM the monopoly Lancaster press.” Did the mission statement author fail to make it through grammar school grammar? Is the writer really that dumb?

It is far better for a journalist to be poor in math than poor in English.

EDITOR’S RESPONSE:

We surmise that every once in a while the same dimwitted, misguided, nasty party is allowed to write an editorial for the New Era.  It is a public embarrassment.  We see no contradiction to our mission by calling actions what they are.

For those who prefer sugar coating and ignoring vital issues (such as the misdirection of Lancaster General Hospital), there are the Lancaster newspapers.

For LNP it is a business, which we respect.  For us it is a mission to help improve our community.

From NEWSMAX:

The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.

The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.

They warn travelers that they are entering an “active drug and human smuggling area” and they may encounter “armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed.” Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to “use public lands north of Interstate 8″ and to call 911 if they “see suspicious activity.”

Click here to read the full article.

From Bob Herbert, NEW YORK TIMES:

We learned on Saturday that our so-called partner in this forlorn war, Hamid Karzai, fired a top prosecutor who had insisted on, gasp, fighting the corruption that runs like a crippling disease through his country…

Time magazine tells us that stressed-out, depressed and despondent soldiers are seeking help for their mental difficulties at a rate that is overwhelming the capacity of available professionals. What we are doing to these troops who have been serving tour after tour in Afghanistan and Iraq is unconscionable…

One of the reasons we’re in this state of nonstop warfare is the fact that so few Americans have had any personal stake in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no draft and no direct financial hardship resulting from the wars. So we keep shipping other people’s children off to combat as if they were some sort of commodity, like coal or wheat, with no real regard for the terrible price so many have to pay, physically and psychologically…

Click here to read the full article.

The Watchdog had a routine visit to a medical group of eight specialists.

The building was “A” grade.  The waiting room was spacious and well appointed, albeit almost empty. The receptionist was courteous in verifying the Watchdog’s insurance coverage.  (If no insurance, presumably cash up front.)

He noted several support personnel passing through the lobby and later in the corridors, many transporting files.

He assumed that behind closed doors there were other clerks billing and negotiating with the insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid.

Led into a comfortable examination room, a pleasant medical assistant asked a few questions and conducted a test.

The specialist entered with file in hand.  He was most informative, helpful and gracious.

The Watchdog did not mention that in France the offices would have been small in size, rates were standardized and largely covered by universal health care, there would have been far fewer support personnel, all his health records would have been kept on his “vital card” carried in his wallet, the physician would have had immediate access to the information and, at the end of the visit, have added his notations to the records on the card.

Nor did he mention that the cost of national health care in France is half as much per capita as in the USA.  Nor did he add that care in France is considered the best in all of the advanced economic countries, and care in the USA is rated the worst

After his examination, he entered a pleasant office where he settled his account with a proficient lady.

As part of friendly chatter, the physician volunteered that he thought the British Health Care system was in trouble and was going to become two tiered, meaning that rich patients would be allowed to bypass the universal health coverage and obtain health care at his or her own expense from private sources.

The Watchdog remarked to the doctor’s surprise that the American system was already two tiered:  Some Americans have access to adequate health care.   Others do not.

The New Era editorial this morning, “What motivates mosque backers?” is the most deceitful and demagogic I have ever witnessed by newspaper editorial writers.

It is cunningly deceitful for [its]editorialist to supposedly quote syndicated columnist Cal Thomas by stating “As Cal Thomas pointed out on this page Friday, Rauf’s (the leader of the Muslim community center) goal is to use ‘peaceful means’ to establish the Islamic state worldwide”

Cal Thomas, who is certainly no innocent in this matter, said no such thing.

Cal Thomas pointed to a foreign language (Arabic) website (www.hadielislam.com – no translations available) where a supposed interview with Rauf was published which was then privately translated by a former Palestinian terrorist turned Christian convert (he is also an “end times”/Muslim conspiracy enthusiast, etc.) This person then “explains” what Rauf wants to do, without ever actually quoting the “translation”, and, it is on this, less than a thread of credibility, that we discover, for the first time ever, just what it is that Rauf wants to do, i.e. use “peaceful means” to establish an Islamic state worldwide, a state that both the New Era and Cal Thomas immediately elaborate on as one that would subject all infidels, including Christians and Jews, to decapitation.

Is this not simple deceit plus gratuitous fear mongering which amounts to demagoguery? Additionally, is it not also political opportunism in creating yet another “anger point” to hang on President Obama as the mid-term silly season begins?

But to some, this new “information” comes with a bonus.

Opponents of the NYC project will not only be able to quote an unknown terrorist turned Christian for an explanation of what Rauf really wants to do, they can “point to” nationally syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas, and our own local newspaper’s editorial writers. How is that for irrefutable evidence? Disgraceful!

The following is excerpted from “Washington Rules, America’s Path to Permanent War” by Andrew J. Bacevich:

“For some comparative perspective, consider this possibility:  In light of his country’s status as a rising power, China’s minister of defense announces plans to:

1) Increase Chinese military spending so that annual expenditures by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will henceforth e4xceed the combined defense budgets of Japan, South Korea, Russia, India, Germany, France and Great Britain;

2) Create a constellation of forward-depl9yed PLA garrisons in strategically sensitive areas around the world, including say, Latin America, expressing the global range of Chinese interests.

3) Negotiate access agreements and overflight rights with dozens of nations to facilitate humanitarian intervention and augment the PLSA’s ability to assist in maintaining global stability;

4) Partition Planet Earth into sprawling territorial commands, with one four-star Chinese general assigned responsibility for the Asia Pacific, another for Africa, a third for the Middle East, and so on – to include a Chinese North America Command, charged with monitoring conditions on that continent, and a Chinese Space Command responsible for the cosmos;

5) Institute a vigorous program of war games and exercises in countries around the world, to include the Western Hemisphere, while maintain in instant readiness the land, air, and naval forces need to convert such games and exercises into combat operations;

6) Form a PLA Long-Range Strike Force, capable on very short notice of conducting Intercontinental attacks, employing conventional or nuclear weapons or operating in cyberspace.”

Now ask yourself how the USA is perceived by other nations for doing the above?

How would our able young men and women react to such a Chinese hegemony?

Between making ourselves the world’s police force and squandering at least 5% of our Gross National Product on inferior health care, is there any wonder why the USA is sliding towards second world status?

In assessing their rescue efforts on behalf of the Pennsylvania Academy of Music (PAM), few will accuse Chairman Dr. Holmes Morton, Executive Director Dr. Tom Godfrey, and attorney Jacque Geisenberger, Jr. as pandering or even seeking to be ‘nice’ as is expected by members of the Lancaster ‘Establishment’ in dealing with their peers.  Nor are they particularly adept in their public outreach, at least not at the outset.

But one thing they are determined to do and appear to be accomplishing:  To assure the continuation of PAM as a viable school of music and cultural center.

Art Mann, then head of PAM’s business committee who was brought in to help save the school, sagely noted that PAM consists of two elements:  A building, which has subsequently been taken over by UNCB Bank and is tenanted by Millersville University, and a school of music.  It was painful to lose such a magnificent, albeit impractical structure, but the latest leaders are carrying forward the work of Mann and his committee.  (When it was apparent that PAM was at a point of collapse, Dr. Bob Falk took over the chairmanship from Paul Ware and Mann and his committee became the de facto leaders.  NewsLanc’s publisher, Robert Field, was appointed to be their advisor.)

If Field’s advice at times had seemed too tough for the Lancaster environment whereby no one wants to face ‘social ostracism’,  the team of Morton, Godfrey and Geisenberger does not suffer from such inhibitions.

It is not a popular action to sue past supporters for unpaid pledges.  A long time, generous supporter is quoted by the Intelligencer Journal / New Era as saying “They’re going to have a very difficult time getting donors when they have a history of suing them.”

Perhaps, perhaps not.

First of all, the Bankruptcy Court has charged the leadership with collecting funds legally due the school.  It is their responsibility.

Second, it is not unusual over the course of a career for people with money to make bad investments.  But they meet their legal obligations.  (Of course some  ‘pick up their marbles and run ‘ and  seek and achieve public bail outs.)

Last, the original backers of PAM and others loved what it was accomplishing for music and the local culture, and envisioned the potential for far greater things in the future.   If many now sit on their wallets, it is because they fear continuation of leaders unwilling to make competent and unpopular decisions that are in the Academy’s (and the community’s) interests.

PAM will operate this fall out of its former Liberty Place facilities which are adequate for its immediate needs.